Isogenica and Phylogica announce successful technology collaboration

Feb. 23, 2011 - PRLog -- Isogenica Ltd (Cambridge, UK) and Phylogica Ltd , a leading Australian drug discovery company, have succeeded in a proof of concept project demonstrating compatibility of Isogenica’s proprietary CIS in-vitro display technology for peptide engineering and drug discovery with Phylogica’s Phylomer® drug discovery platform.

Isogenica (http://www.isogenica.com) has been successful in hitting the milestones relating to the collaboration announced in January 2010.  

The objectives of the project were to use Isogenica’s CIS display to achieve further optimisation of Phylogica’s lead compounds targeting CD40 ligand (CD40L).  

Phylogica CEO Dr Paul Watt said: “This latest milestone has demonstrated Isogenica’s CIS display technology is highly compatible with Phylogica’s Phylomer libraries.  This means the technology can be used to screen trillions of variants of Phylomers in a significantly shorter timeframe than is currently achievable”.

Isogenica’s technology is well established within the industry and the company has relationships with many of Phylogica’s current and prospective pharmaceutical partners.

Dr Watt continued: “This combination of the Phylomer libraries with Isogenica’s CIS display technology represents a value-adding expansion of Phylogica’s drug discovery platform and could open up new partnership opportunities.  The two companies are exploring a broader alliance to exploit the unique commercial potential of their combined technologies”.

Phylomers are sourced from the most structurally diverse peptide libraries in the world.

The primary screening of Phylomer libraries using CIS display could increase this diversity further, resulting in even higher quality outputs.  Moreover, the combined technology offers the ability to screen efficiently against dozens of disease targets in parallel.

Dr Watt added: “This increased capacity could also stimulate significant new revenue opportunities for our drug discovery business by expanding our service offering and reducing our cost base.”

Isogenica’s CEO, Dr Kevin Matthews, said: “The pharmaceutical industry is constantly exploring new molecular structures that could lead to significant new medical treatments. The broad structural diversity of Phylogica’s Phylomer libraries, combined with the ability to rapidly generate trillions of Phylomer variants, fast-tracks molecular evolution and could generate improved lead candidates in a significantly shorter time frame.”

Phylogica scientists are now confident that using the display technology will ensure accelerated screening of the company’s vast Phylomer libraries to meet demand from potential pharmaceutical partners.

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About Isogenica: Isogenica specialises in the discovery and optimisation of therapeutic and diagnostic peptides, proteins and antibodies using its proprietary technology, CIS display. Founded in 2000 Isogenica has developed a unique capability in the field of protein engineering. Isogenica's CIS display technology is an in vitro display technology that allows the rapid generation of polypeptide and antibody libraries from which it is possible to select lead molecules with high affinity and specificity for most targets. http://www.isogenica.com